75Mbps GH1 Peak Performance Patch

royfel said:
From those that have really tried to get every bit of information out of the GH1 it has pretty much been determined that native 24 doesn't work (...really well), I sleep easily at night knowing that Mr. Powell is doing his best to discover every nuance in this camera, if he says it doesn't work it doesn't. That being said I'm sure that within 2 days someone will post asking for the best setting for 24N. Having read almost every post in this forum I have formed a strange addiction hoping everyday some new discovery will be made, hanging on every iteration Mr. Powell comes up with. Solid proof that winters in the mid- west are not good for a healthy mental state.
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I shot two episodes of a web series with no problems whatsoever with 24N. Cards were Sandisk 30MB/s.

Only problem was 720p60 with higher than 1/320 shutter.
 
royfel said:
The MJPEG output of this patch cannot be dropped into a Sony Vegas timeline (shows up as audio only), when played on the Win7 media player there is a "fluttering" bottom border. Was able to convert to MP4 in Handbreak and import in the timeline but it had a 1-2 pixel flickering white line across the bottom. No joy in QT 7.6.9 on Win either
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Any progress on this issue? Thanks, I was going to go and shoot a bunch of mjpeg, you saved me a lot of my time.
 
I did lots of testing yesterday and this morning around Pismo Beach, CA (Coastal beach town right between Los Angeles and San Francisco). The one video that I could make fail easily is of a couple of ducks swimming slowly on calm water. I am guessing the ripples is what causes the failure. Both AVCHD FHD and SH failed immediately. I'll try to paste a sample short video if I can here. The other unusual thing that happens: the photo files are named with P**** until any video is taken; then photo files are named _**** (the P is changed to an underscore). My background in software tells me that the Peak hack is overwriting some memory areas not supposed to be overwritten... Al

Edit: I used a 32GB SanDisk Extreme 30Mbs card
 
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Peak Performance Patch Update

Peak Performance Patch Update

After further testing, I've made several modifications to the Peak Performance Patch to improve its stability at the highest bitrates. In addition, I eliminated the recording glitches in MJPEG mode by a slight adjustment of its frame size to 1440x816 pixels.

For the latest version of the downloadable PTool INI file, check out the first post in this thread.
 
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Thanks lpowell for the new mods, i had a few issues to with mjpeg failing but mostly 720p 50fps in very bright sunlight (lots of highlights) and reverted to35Mb reliable settings for a 2 days on water event shoot which went 100% perfect. All clips recorded average 33mbps with 45 - 200 Lumix lens and awesome detail. All shots were of paddlers on an angry ocean so continuous motion and shot from the back of jetski. So good even a TV producer of a cable network at the event asked for the footage after seeing the raw clips at a presentation that nite. He was gob smacked when i showed him the little Gh13 camera i shot it with, his men were using $50k ENG cams. Of course being small and expendable (GH1) i was able to get in position better to get the shots.

Will try the new settings, thanks again.

R
 
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Thanks for the props, Rambo, your video shoots sound far more demanding than my test cases! I'm very interested to hear how reliably the 25p and 50p patches work for you. My impression is that the PAL modes are inherently more stable than the GH1's 24p video mode.

And thanks to everyone who's tested the Peak Performance Patch and posted their results here. The stability issues you've helped uncover motivated me to conduct more lengthy and intensive test cases than previous patches have required. As a result, I've made a number of modifications to improve the reliability of both NTSC and PAL versions of the patch:

* I fixed the MJPEG recording errors by increasing the frame height slightly to produce a 1440x816 video frame. It turns out the trick to making 4:2:2 color depth work properly is to set a frame height that is exactly divisible by 8.

* I had to back off on using a 10-frame GOP in 1920x1080 FHD mode, and have increased it to 15 frames in both 24p and 25p video modes.

* I was able to tighten up the stability of both 50p and 60p videos in 1280x720 SH mode.

The test cases I devised to fine-tune these patches are not the kind of exposures you would normally shoot. I used 1000 watts of fluorescent spotlights to produce aliased moire patterns on the Pappas tests charts. I shot super-dense shrubbery, harshly illuminated in broad daylight, that had been manicured into a flat focus plane. I locked the camera motionless on a tripod and panned it in short jerks to thoroughly torment the AVCHD encoder.

This is not to say I think the patch is now flawless or bulletproof - there are too many operational variances involved to exhaustively test every possible combination. When I need the utmost reliability for non-repeatable shots, I'll stick with the Reliable In-Camera Playback Patch. But for the highest image quality the camera is capable of consistently producing, this Peak Performance Patch is what I'll be using.

For the latest version of the downloadable PTool INI file, check out the first post in this thread:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...rmance-Patch&p=2222557&viewfull=1#post2222557
 
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props lpowell
unable to try the new patch until wed, looking forward to it :smile:
cheers again for the hard work man!
 
I had a chance to test my updated settings today on the leafy trees outside my office, while they were blindingly illuminated by the noonday sun. This time all NTSC and PAL video modes passed the test (last week, not so much). I'm very interested to hear if other posters are seeing similar results?
 
lpowell said:
I shot super-dense shrubbery, harshly illuminated in broad daylight, that had been manicured into a flat focus plane.
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LOL. Other people in the neighbourhood go for the peaceful Japanese garden look, and some sculpt their hedges into interesting shapes like animals and tulips. lpowell's yard is a strictly aligned codec testing complex. And I bet there's no mud to see at all...

Regret that I was unable to test the new setting over the weekend. I would have overcome my snotty cold and bad back if it had been sunny, but it was two days of dismal grey. Tried to learn about deinterlacing and pulldown instead. Jibber.
 
Help with GF1

Help with GF1

Hi lpowell, thanks so much for all your hard work on figuring this stuff out!

This is my first post, and I've done as much reading as I could, as to avoid wasting the pro's time!

I just have a few questions that I hope you can answer, and then I'll slink back into the corner.

I'm going to be using my GF-1 for recording short documentaries, and maybe even some feature type pieces. I'd ilke to shoot at the highest possible quality in both audio and video WHILE still maintaing stability.

I have only shot one piece so far:
http://www.vimeo.com/19085263

I shot it in AVCHD and then imported that footage into FCP, which transcodes the AVCHD file into Apple's intermediate codec, which is called Prores.

My questions are as follows:

1. For shooting 720p which will be graded and edited on the computer, which is the better format AVCHD or MJPEG? CPU, disk space, and software are not important, I have access to all of those things. I do need to be able to shoot long shots though, sometimes over an hour, but quality would be less important for those long shots.

2. What is the current "best stable" firmware situation for shooting on the GF1? Things change so fast, and I only see recommendations for the GH1. I'm only interested in 720p, but would like to get the best results possible. I'm not shooting too many action shots, mainly indoor, low light stuff.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I don't need help actually installing the firmware, I have played around with that and haven't had any problems there.

Thank you!

Stephen
 
Just tested your latest lpowell indoors with fast pans with AVCHD FHD and SH and no failures. I was even able to play the videos on camera. I think you are very close if not already there with this Peak performance being the ONE! Al
 
aljudy said:
I did lots of testing yesterday and this morning around Pismo Beach, CA (Coastal beach town right between Los Angeles and San Francisco). The one video that I could make fail easily is of a couple of ducks swimming slowly on calm water. I am guessing the ripples is what causes the failure. Both AVCHD FHD and SH failed immediately. I'll try to paste a sample short video if I can here. The other unusual thing that happens: the photo files are named with P**** until any video is taken; then photo files are named _**** (the P is changed to an underscore). My background in software tells me that the Peak hack is overwriting some memory areas not supposed to be overwritten... Al

Edit: I used a 32GB SanDisk Extreme 30Mbs card
Click to expand...
ripples and especially the brush and grass on the right.
 
JoeJITSU said:
ripples and especially the brush and grass on the right.
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I'm hoping aljudy can run this test again with the updated patch settings I posted earlier today. The file name corruption he described, however, is not a symptom I've ever seen myself. One thing that can cause corrupted video files is removing the SD card too soon after recording stops. With high-bitrate videos, the camera sometimes needs extra time to complete the recording process.
 
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